How Tech Companies Are Redesigning Offices To Lure Workers Back 

Can't help but think that this is also partially driven by commercial real estate developers and architects fighting for their lives since remote work may mean the end of bespoke HQ mega projects... 🤔

I can guarantee you tech (or office workers in general) did NOT vote for increased "collaborative workspace environment" layouts, such as the ones being shown here. These were dreamt up by higher leadership who do not understand or care about the true productivity of the worker. I worked at a company that drank the kool-aid about CWE, and workers somehow benefitting for constant noise, distraction, and constant chaos of multiple conversations going on while you were trying to focus and concentrate. The cubicle farm was absolutely more conducive to productivity and innovation, as people were actually allowed to think and concentrate. Collaboration was not hindered, as dm'ing colleagues, or getting up and physically communicating with teammates was always an option. The architects who push "flexible workstations" do not care about about health and disease spread ramifications, resulting from different people using the same space each day. The upshot from this nonsense is that: greater numbers of employees will prioritize working from home,

Yes.Employees don't want back in the offices! Why waste money on transport, pollute, waste time on commute,plus people are more productive and efficient. People's routines changed....

Cool. But I don't think any amount of pretty architecture and yoga ball chairs will replace what needs to change the most: quality of life. 40 hours a week, driving to the office five days a week, and often being forced into overtime, driving back and forth in a small fortune on wheels is not healthy for anyone. Healthy and well people are productive people.

Even if a company paid for my gas and my commute time, I'd still rather work from the comfort of my own home.

They talk a lot about listening to what people want, but a good 90%+ of those designs were still open-space where you can hear, and be distracted by, everyone else in the area. Seems to me they didn't listen much, since the lack of distractions is one of the main reasons people are more productive working from home. Seems like they're still designing for (and only listening to) extreme extroverts, and don't care about everyone else.

No amount of redesign will ever make me wanna come back into an office

These office layouts are my nightmare. I hate, hate, hate open concept offices. I can’t focus because it’s just one big playroom.

Instead of embracing work at home and shifting with the times they're deciding to fight an uphill battle 🤦‍♂️

I've been working from home for years now... I would need a 50% bump in salary to come back to an in person office.

Collaboration is great but at the end of the day, it's completing actual tasks and getting real work done that matters.

They can make it as fancy as they want. They can pay for my gas and my maintenance to get me to the office. But at the end of the day, I'd rather work from home. Simple as that. Use that space for affordable living instead.

I thought cubicles created more efficient workers based on new studies rather than open concepts. I know as a engineer I work better when not bothered, so working from home is better. Using correct methodologies and hiring critical thinkers is better than making more spaces like this. I end up working more at home because I know that when I'm done I am already home.

Nothing will drag me back into any office ever again.

Employees must never be forced to work from an office. If the daily work can be achieved while working from our homes, then it literally makes no sense for a person to unnecessarily commute to an office building to do the same work. Period

As long as it remains the 100% voluntary, it’s fine. Otherwise, all of this comes at considerable cost to the employee (time, gas, meals, and vehicular maintenance - or transit costs) and the environment (increased air pollution). All of this would’ve been great pre-pandemic where inflation was pretty much fixed at 2% and housing costs were a bit more stable.

It shocks me how inflexible companies are . Some of these offices give workers absolutely no space or privacy of their own. Some of the desks I'm watching here have workers shoulder to shoulder. When one person comes in sick the whole office gets it. At least try placing a divider btwn employees.

Why are we still building open offices if we want workers to come back to offices? Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that open offices are extremely unpopular. I'd personally love something more intentional where there are actual offices for getting work done and open collaborative spaces for collaborating. Open offices are an in-between ground that in my opinion does neither of those things well.

I went to office one day this month. As I was walking a block to catch the bus, I saw the bus go by. The bus was early. I turned around to walk in the opposite direction about 4 blocks to catch another bus. That bus was late. When I got to the subway, the train was delayed. I realized in that moment going thru this commuter craziness on a daily basis has to take years off a person's life.

2:33 I think I can live with not seeing my "colleagues."

I don’t miss feeling self conscious about my appearance as a woman. I don’t miss being talked down to or folks expecting me to be dumber because I’m black. I don’t miss getting sick from being around people who have animals like cats and being a ton of dander into the office. I don’t miss working in the office at all. A ton of stress interacting with people who barely accept me in a country that has contempt for black people generally will not be missed.

I don't mind coming back for hybrid because my job requires some in-office work. But that means I get a fixed desk with some privacy. These open-office nightmares look like they would appeal to preschoolers not adults expected to get real work done. If this is their answer I would much rather stay at home. If you want me to come back please treat me as an adult. I love the idea of the drop-in offices where even us lowly cubicle workers could have offices for quiet and focused work but I don't want lockers or hot-desking or bean bag chairs I'm not 12. If an executive wouldn't work in that kind of an environment we don't want it either. Conference rooms, hallways, and small rooms with cubicles are plenty collaborative while still allowing privacy and respect.

$6 a gallon for gas and a 2% raise with 9% inflation, employers have no leverage.

let’s be real, employees don’t really care about office space aesthetics as much as they care about free food. free lunch and snacks will surehandedly lure employees back into the office, but no company wants to admit that or take on that amenity. Instead it’s gimmicky floorplans that’ll get boring and fizzle out..

Honestly, these people completely missed the entire point of telecommuting. Offices help no one, not even teams. I'm too lazy to describe it, but we have the perfect remote work setup. And the office will, sooner rather than later, be gone. Not unexpectedly, the owners of the building are struggling because we're not the only company downsizing their spaces.

Collab office is just a fancy way of cramming more employees into an office space by removing partitions and making employees sit as close together as possible. They have to bring back the cube. Make it a cube with a lot of space so they don’t feel cramped. Not everyone needs to talk to other people when working. In fact most people want peace and quiet or listen to music while they work. Not everyone can WFH. We need people to work in the office or society would collapse. Health Care professionals, Retail Workers, Restaurant workers, Police, Fire Fighters, Airline Industry (pilots, cabin crew, ground staff, ATC, TSA, Ticket Counter, etc), Construction Workers, Logistics, etc. When I think about all the people who must go to work. I have no problems going into the office when required.

Why on earth after a pandemic would people want more shared spaces, wouldn't they want fewer shared spaces so they would be less likely to transmit an airborne virus... since covid is still a thing and we are ONE unfortunate variant away from being back to 2020.

Offices are full of distractions and you spend half the day on zoom calls. You can do that at home. However I’m open to heading into an office a few times a quarter for meetings and syncs.

No one likes open offices. This will just make people not want to go to the office even more.

Companies should have a hybrid model rather than asking employees to work from the office or from home. Employees meeting a couple times a week or a month could be enough depending on the job.

"Hotel Desks" is the trend. You basically book a desk if you're traveling for however long you need. Its pretty nice if you have to commute to different cities especially if your entire work day could consist of meetings.

What a bunch of bs, they want to end working from home. I'll never Go to the office every week again.

02:20 40 minutes of commuting daily... what ?! ... is everyone living like in 100 meters from work ?! Even when one lives in a town in 10 km from office it may take 1h*2=2h or so and it's only commute. But you also should include daily time to prepare for going to work and to switch from work when coming back to home. So overall it's like minus 2.5-3h daily from your life. For bigger cities I guess it's even bigger.

Also, I often felt cubicle spaces were demeaning, especially while those in leadership sat nearby in lush offices.

It feels like this is snapping up to be a battle between the extroverts (who typically float up to management) vs introverts who mainly wanna be left alone to accomplish their tasks. Has it occurred to these companies that a significant portion of their workers did their best work once most of the other workers were gone in the pre-covid times?

The "open cough" workplace. LOL. I remember all those times i used to come to work in the office even though I was sick. I would pop some pills to hide the symptoms and then go to the office and spread sickness. At least back then we had cubicles to help contain it. Now every droplet will float right to your neighbor in the "open cough" workplace.

As a 20-something worker, this flexibility looks more like my uni days- on campus, there were a dozen different locations and spaces to choose from to work, or you could just pack up and work from home, no one was telling you how to work. Glad the office is finally catching up…

If you are +1 hour away from the office, I doubt this is going to change much. However, if you live within a reasonable distance, I believe this will entice more people to go back; especially if they miss the social connection at work.

Oh how I hate those long desks where you work shoulder to shoulder with people, and even more if there is another desk right in front with another line of people.

I say if you working on the office working nomadic or working from your home is the best way because you have a lot more freedom and you save a lot of money because you don't need a babysitter.. plus you can live out of your van or RV and travel as you work..

So, we are now admitting we’re Post-Covid?

You cannot create beach, waterfalls, mountains etc in office. So please let us work remotely

Yupp working from home is better but there’s always that one employee that ruins it for everyone ..

We already had such a high turnover rate where I work before the pandemic... This year, management was so curious as to why it increased when they forced us to be in the office for 3 days? They thought we would love to come back especially since they spent a lot on this redesigning... We're also not even a tech company lol

You know what employees want? Their own desk and space like a human being. Not this "flex-space" BS. And NO ONE is coming into the office unless they are being absolutely forced to. "We found that people missed their colleagues" yeah absolutely not. The whole point of working from home is to sleep in, not have to commute, or get dressed, or play office politics, and be able to do chores and things around the house during the day. Nothing about going into the office is going to bring together "the best of both worlds" P.S. Intuit needs a new collaborative space so they can figure out innovative ways to steal from hardworking Americans who are just trying to file their taxes.

Ventilation Ventilation Ventilation

How to make your office more valuable? Renovate 😂🤣

What about a breakfast station with free breakfast so I can still wake up relatively late and not stuff food down my throat. And a taser station at every desk so I can incapacitate anybody that annoys me and prevents me from working, unnecessarily, too much times.

Yeah...this all looks lovely, but as a programmer, I want to work from home 100% of the time. * I have my 38" monitor. Nothing is going to beat that * I don't have to commute, which immediately saves me 3 hours of my time and $5K just on my train ticket alone * I don't have to spend a lot of money on my wardrobe * While this personally doesn't affect me, for many, the ability to not be tied to the city in which your office is located means you save a ton of money. I know co-workers who have left the city. I know some who have left the country! Adding bean bag chairs and coffee machines and trees in the middle of the building are great, but just from not having to commute and not having to live in an expensive city can save you as much as $20K a year or more. About two years ago, I programmed for a very famous company (Let's just say our previous president loved them) and the building was designed by a famous architect. It had an open botanical area where rain water would hit the plants and trees from the outside (even though it was inside). You could sit on the second floor and watch people running to catch the train while you worked. It had sleeping areas and sitting areas with palm trees. It had so much. You know where I did my work? At my desk! At the end of the day, at least for me, if I'm actually getting serious work done, I need 1. a desk, 2 a big monitor, 3. quiet/no distractions (unless I'm collaborating with someone).

What the workers want is asense of fulfillment, job security, reduced mental stress, fixed working hours( no calls after these hours), better leadership, and feeling that they can climb up the ladder not stagnate and feel their education and capabilities are useless, if the training they have is not enough a way to improve upon that. And reasonable pay for the efforts and time they put in. (Not minimal wage -thats what they call corporate greed)

I've been involved with 3 campus expansions since 2019. Main drivers are capital allocation for tax benefits, creating a desirable subsidiary for sale, and vanity projects. I've yet to be involved with an HQ new build/reno where recruitment, retainment or productivity are the drivers. Creating a place where service employees might work and might be more productive doesn't compute. Nearly every company that needs it's employees in the office has done so and this goes back to summer 2020. I'd rather see an analysis on the industry/specialty where this MiGhT be relevant. In my geographic area there have been 2 industries that pulled their corporate people in last year, banks and Defense. Both hybrid models. If they do an analysis on small companies that consult in IT/construction/etc. and their onsite/remote work policy that'd interest me. CNBC definitely has the pulse of the here and now professional's mind. Love their clips even if I have strong feelings that this one only covered a big corps hybrid model POV.

“Adult daycares”

I love how social distancing is now out the window and workers will be on top of each other with those tiny desks. I hate whoever came up with those tiny desks. You should get your whatever degree you have revoked and be extradited.

02:37 "spark of innovation when meeting someone face to face" - who invents all these jokes...

Open space is horror for those who actually try to focus and get the work done. The architects that draw such designs have absolutely no clue what the workers really need.

Too think they would pay employees more instead of all this gimmick.

BETC HAVAS in Brazil just opened a hybrid book shop, art gallery, coffee shop and restaurant open to general public but some places for employees only. There is also meeting room and a rooftop bar. It's very casual, placed at the most luxurious street in Brazil.

Severance Season 2 is looking fine

There’s no better resource for productivity than the home

Who actually wants to commute to work again 😂 You could paint the rainbow on a prison, it's still a prison. Library? It's called an eBook lol.

When associates can work remotely, why waste money that can be invested in customers and new businesses into the sunk costs of office space

This just looks like the layout at Intel with more color. If we have another pandemic and we will, disease will spread throughout this environment like wildfire, with workspaces so small and people so close to each other. Besides at home you have more privacy, something this designer basically forgot. You can’t work in glassed in areas all the time, we used to call them Fish Bowls and you had to get on the schedule to use one.

You need to focus more on building housing for your employees. Take the office space and make lofts from them. Daycare as well then you got something.

the third boss's outfit (the shirt) has a perfect balance of colour and variation of material.

05:38 - 06:05 "...new concept, our employees have choices..." :) I see nothing which would differ from usual (not even very modern) office. Why it is presented like something innovative ?!

Nothing can make me want to return to the office

They make it look like an apartment bedroom.

That looks amazing

Open concept work areas are the worst. It’s over stimulating and you feel mentally exhausting at the end of the day. You could do the same exact work from home and not feel that drained. Give people their own office with a door and they might come in.

How many times do we have to tell you? Beech we ain't going back. No office renovations will change that.

There's no need for daily office attendance. Let the office space serve for a ☕ meeting once in a while.

Looks like a rebranding of most modern existing offices. You won't be chained to your cubical now, but fenced in by your neighbourhood.

People who actually have to go into the office should be paid much, much more.

An introvert was not involved in this design and concept.

Wonder why they needed inconvenient lockers on the end of rows...there should already be a locker per desk nearby...better to use that space to give more room per desk instead

If the open collaboration workspace is so great, why isn't the CEO working right in the center of it? Maybe because the constant drone of a dozen conversations makes it hard to concentrate?

Wow amazing good job em

Oh hell no I’m happy working from home and I’ve been doing that way before the pandemic so not really interested in going into a square space to smell coworkers bad morning breath

I turned down a pay raise & promotion because it required me to give up telework. No amount of redesign can compete w a 30 second commute, working in my pajamas, not worrying about lunch theft, the option to either have complete silence or blast a podcast / music & enjoying the comfort of my emotional support puppy when I'm stressed. But the #1 perk of working from home is that I don't have to talk to people.

Office employees do about 3hrs of work when they’re in the office, filling the rest of their time with busy work. At home they do the same amount but finish before lunch so they can golf for the rest of the day.

How about they build apartments close to office and give employees subsidized housing?

You aren't tested until a company you own and believe in is down 30-40-50% from its highs. You will question your conviction, your strategy, your process. The market has a way of finding your breaking point. Nothing tests your conviction like falling stock prices

Heard a lot, didn’t understand what the new era is.

would be better to just downsize to an office at a suitable size for the portion of employees who do want to come into the office instead. would likely save money that way. maybe find a way to use that extra space for something else that might bring in some revenue instead. depending on the building maybe you could design it into a shared workspace, retail space, or depending on the initial design of the building maybe you can convert it to residential. probably won't work for building like what Google has though.

I’ll go back into the office when my company provides amenities like Google, Meta, and Apple. Free food, massage therapists, gyms, and sleep pods are a few top of mind.

Also they could prob turn the unused office real estate into idk maybe affordable housing !? 🤯🤯🤯

I will never want to go back to office, even though they pay me more money.

I think hybrid and smaller offices are the way to go. Even as an introvert, I need some IRL human interaction. Perhaps I’m the anomaly here but I live alone in a big city with very few close friends. Most of my periphery friends moved out of the city during the pandemic or moved on with their lives (aka children). I’ve only lived in this city for 5 years and 2 years of that was the pandemic. I have been unemployed for half of this time, which has made sustaining friendships difficult as usually my friendships came through my jobs. It’s also harder to make new friends in my mid 30s. Dating has been harder now that I’m older. It’s just way too lonely to work remotely 100% of the time. Plus my upstairs neighbor is noisy af. That said, I only go into the office once a week at present which is enough for me. And I don’t need any fancy office design. Just something quiet and not distracting will do. But also not bleak.

I want to live alternatively I live out of my van and I'm loving my freedom I don't pay rent.. so I would work from my van.. or should I say camper van..

I get more done when I work from home. However, I like the office because I get to socialize and blow off steam. My company says we’re less productive at home which is ridiculous and it is actually the opposite. The people who took multiple jobs working from home ruined the idea for the rest of us. I would prefer a hybrid model or leaving it up to the employee

The title should have been "How companies have not learned a thing over the last two and a half years"

The only way I'd go into an office nowadays is if it was full AR.

Of course I would rather work remote. But at the same type I like BMW more than Honda. So I have no problem taking a in office job someone decided to quit hehe.

Where is the logic in thinking that bringing people who are telling you in plain damn English "They want to work from home" to work is the answer??? Even increasing salaries is failing to outweigh the benefits of working from home period. No if and or maybes. We do not want to work from your premises the end. No negotiating or fancy furniture.

Our office hasn’t changed. Return to the office has been suggested, it’s been insisted we should come in for cultural reasons. Well, when you come, those same people who say that are just attending virtual meetings behind a closed door.

Leadership team that approved that “redesign” of the offices has to be removed, they stick to the idea that work must happen inside an office, a proof that old dog doesn’t learn new tricks, a lot of them in this case

Joshua Fluke would laugh so hard seeing this

I have never had a friend at work that I missed enough to come into an office even two times a week. And why would I want a collaboration space to be in close quarters while Covid still exist? My jobs healthcare plan sucks do you think I want to get sick?

I can't wait to go back to the office! SAID NO ONE!!!!

COVID changed the workplace. From now henceforth the workplace will have to be hybrid and dynamic. The 9 to 5, five day paradigm is history.